


The glass breaks through often

by neonetc



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Depression, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Off-screen Character Death, Partnership, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:01:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonetc/pseuds/neonetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What if we don't go back?"</p>
<p>The words slip out of her mouth before she's thought them through, or maybe she's thought about them too much, as she hasn't been able to shake the thought since she woke up warm in his arms this morning.  </p>
<p>"Tasha," he says with a sigh, looking warily at her.  "You know we can't do that.  We have responsibilities, and we've made a commitment, and we're good at what we do."</p>
<p>"We're the best," she says, stabbing at her eggs with her fork.  </p>
<p>"And there's no other place for us."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The glass breaks through often

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from Shinji Moon's poem "Here's What Our Parents Never Taught Us"

He sits with his head in his hands and doesn't look at her, and she thinks of stories of little boys and golden retrievers and cars that were driving too fast. She knows what it is to be broken, to feel your bones shatter and splinter and split, but it's been a long time since she's let any pain reach her heart and the pit of her stomach.

When it hits, the pain, it's stifling, and it knocks her to her knees, and all she can do is let the feelings of helplessness overwhelm her. The sob that comes out of her is not the kind of noise she ever lets herself make, and that's when he looks up.

Their eyes meet and she can read everything in his gaze, his own pain and his concern for her and the little bit of him that wishes he could make a joke and move on from this. Nothing they've been through could've prepared them for this, but he is Clint and she is Natasha and their partnership is the strongest thing either of them have had in their lives for a long time.

"Love is for children," she said once, and for the first time, as Clint gets to the floor next to her and pulls her onto his lap, she envies them. Children do not know how unlimited the cruelty of the world is. Only when she presses her face into his shoulder and feels wetness against her cheeks does she realize she's been crying. 

She wonders then if this is what weakness feels like.

 

They're given time off, but Natasha knows from the severity in her superiors' voices that it isn't optional. So they go to Italy, to Rome, to merge with the crowds of tourists and try to forget themselves. They don't carry weapons and she wears sundresses and lets the air dry her hair, and there's no one after them, not here, not now, but the weight in her stomach never lightens.

They hardly speak, never have, really, throughout most of their partnership, but they're rarely apart. She never had a teddy bear or a blanky as a child, taking her comfort instead from her own strength. But now that's lost, at least temporarily, and he's taken its place, almost without her consent.

He touches her, a hand on her back as they're walking through a crowd, a nudge of his knee against hers under the table at a restaurant lit by too many candles for her taste, and in those moments she knows he's saying that he's still here and he's not going anywhere, but she doesn't believe him no matter how much she wants to.

And she never says it back, not with her head on his shoulder or her hand on his arm, because that would be a lie, and she can't bring herself to lie to him. Every instinct she has is telling her to run. _Why haven't you run yet?_ she asks herself, but she has no answer.

There are fountains all over Rome, and she takes to throwing coins in every time she passes one, staring as they sink to the bottom of the murky water. She wishes she could toss away this pain like change from her pocket. 

"What did you wish for?" Clint asks her once as they cross Piazza Navona in the fading sunlight. She had pasta with clams for dinner, and there's a bad taste in her mouth.

"Nothing," she says. He doesn't push it.

That night she falls asleep on the couch and wakes up in her bed late the next morning, and Clint's gone. The note on the counter that says he's gone to the market for milk and eggs does nothing to ease the worry in her stomach.

She doesn't know where this came from, this codependency, but she hates it like she hates scrambled eggs and slang words. She's become too comfortable with it, but it's not strangling her, and that's terrifying.

When he comes back with the milk, she's sitting on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter, swinging her feet freely in the air and staring blankly at nothing. She hears him come in, sees him out of the corner of her eye, but barely blinks.

"Tasha? You okay?"

She blinks her vision back into focus and looks over at him, standing across the counter from her wearing a gray t-shirt and looking at her like she's a language he can't read. And maybe she is, she thinks.

"No," she says. "When am I going to stop feeling this way?"

He stares at her, blinks and looks down at his hand resting on the counter, still holding the keys to the flat, stares at her again.

"I don't know," he says. "But it won't last forever."

"God, I hope not," she says, meaning to sound sarcastic, but her voice is softer than she realized, more broken. She sounds like another person altogether, and the laughter that follows feels like someone else's too. 

But it dissolves into sobs so quickly that Clint's just standing there, blinking at her, but then her face is wet and he's around the counter with his arms wrapped around her in a second. 

"I'm sorry, Tasha," he says against her hair ten minutes later, once she's got her tears under control and their limbs are tangled together where they sit on the couch, a blanket wrapped around them.

She tilts her head to look up at him, and she knows her eyes are red and her mascara's run, but she doesn't care. This is Clint, and he's seen her bruised and bloodied, and she knows now that this isn't so different.

"Don't you dare apologize," she says, her hand on his cheek. "Don't you dare. This is not your fault."

"It's not yours either," he says, and she thinks maybe his eyes have never looked bluer. 

She pushes away from him then, and she can feel her anger growing. "I'm not-"

"You are," he says, keeping his arms around her. "You are blaming yourself, and you need to stop."

"But it was my fault, you were there, you saw-"

"Yeah, Tasha, I saw you make a mistake, and humans make mistakes." He sighs, running a hand through his hair, and she takes that moment to jump in.

"I don't," she says, trying to be firm, but it feels like the back of her throat is closing up. She's never cried this much in her whole life.

He reaches up and brushes away her tears, and she doesn't pull away, doesn't even flinch. That surprises her almost as much as the words she says next.

"Thank you, Clint, for taking care of me."

He cocks his head at her and pushes a piece of hair off of her forehead. "You're stuck with me, Romanov. Get used to it."

_I already am_ , she thinks. But she doesn't say it. Instead, she smiles gratefully at him and buries her head in his shoulder again. He's softer than he looks. 

 

"Take a shower," he tells her after a while, and she does, leaning against the tile wall and letting the water get in her eyes as she watches the water spiral down the drain. Her eyes feel sore, like she hasn't blinked for hours, and her legs are jello beneath her. She's never felt like this before.

They have gelato for lunch, and the first logical thought of the day comes to her as she's digging into her third scoop of chocolate: she hasn't been to the gym in weeks. Usually she goes running every morning, but she hasn't since they've been here, and somehow, she doesn't miss it. 

"Hey," she says, bumping Clint's knee with her own under the table. "Have you been running lately?"

He shakes his head, his spoon sticking out of his mouth. She laughs at that.

"No," he says, sticking his spoon into his gelato cup. "We're on vacation."

"We're on mandatory leave."

"Whatever." He shrugs. "Cup half full, Tasha." 

She scowls. "That's naive." 

For some reason unbeknownst to her, that makes him smile. "It's looking on the bright side, Tash." 

Now it's her turn to say, "whatever" and return her attention to her gelato.

That night she downs too much wine and falls asleep on the couch with her head on his shoulder, and he carries her to bed and tucks her under the covers.

"Stay," she whispers, grabbing his hand as he turns to leave. "Please." 

She can't see his face clearly in the dark and she knows she won't remember it in the morning, but she swears she sees something close to hesitation, trepidation, pass over his features. But then he kicks of his boots and slips off his jeans and slides in beside her. 

When she wakes up, she's curled against him with his arm draped across her chest, and she doesn't quite remember how she got there, but it doesn't alarm her. 

 

"What if we don't go back?"

The words slip out of her mouth before she's thought them through, or maybe she's thought about them too much, as she hasn't been able to shake the thought since she woke up warm in his arms this morning. 

"Tasha," he says with a sigh, looking warily at her. "You know we can't do that. We have responsibilities, and we've made a commitment, and we're good at what we do."

"We're the best," she says, stabbing at her eggs with her fork. 

"And there's no other place for us." 

She looks up and catches his eye, and there's something else there, something else he wants to say but won't, maybe isn't ready to. She's not good at reading people, not when it matters, but with Clint it comes naturally, like her native tongue. And this, she can tell, is something she shouldn't press, not until he brings it to her himself.

That night, she can't sleep and moves into Clint's room. His suitcase is open on the floor and several of his shirts are draped over the chair in the corner, but the room smells like him, and it comforts her immediately. He's asleep already, but his eyes instantly open when she slides into the bed next to him.

"Natasha," he mumbles, blinking at her in the darkness. "What are you doing?"

"Couldn't sleep," she says. "Shut up." 

The next day, she leads them across the city to a museum she's researched, one that holds a sculpture she's admired for her whole life and has only just realized is in the same place as her. It's Bernini's "Rape of Proserpina" and it's beautiful in its violence, and it makes her heart ache. She's never let art do that before. 

She can feel Clint watching her as she circles the sculpture, watching the figures seemingly move before her. When she comes back to him he's still staring at her.

"Did you look at it?" she says.

"No," he says. "I looked at the way you looked at it."

She blinks at him and doesn't answer, instead grabbing his hand and leading him to another room of the museum. His palm is warm and callused and wraps around hers like it's the most normal thing in the world. He carried her out of a burning building once, but they've never held hands, she realizes. And her next thought is, _why haven't we?_

She kisses him that night, pulls him to a stop as they're walking back to the flat after dinner. She leans up and presses her lips to his before he has a chance to realize what's happening, but then he's stumbling backwards, one arm wrapped around her back.

"Tasha," he breathes, his voice thick. "I'm not doing this if for you it's just-"

"It's not just anything for me," she says, and he looks at her strangely for a second, and then smiles, because he's Clint, and she knows that he knows how hard it is for her to feel, and how it's even harder for her to express those feelings. 

Back in the flat they are a rush of fingers and lips and tongues and zippers and buttons, and she's barely breathing, barely seeing when he grabs her hands in his own and presses his lips to her temple.

"Are you sure?" he whispers, his breath hot against her cheek.

"Yes," she says. 

 

When they go back, when they pack up their suitcases and wave their goodbyes to Rome's fountains and its food, some things have changed, but some things are the same. Her gun feels familiar strapped to her waist and her knife fits the same way against her thigh, but the weight in her stomach has dissolved, and there instead is the pleasant tickle of having something to go home to. She doesn't share all of her secrets with him, and isn't sure if she'll ever be able to, but she lets him into her apartment in New York City, the one she spent months decorating even though no one besides herself ever sees it. 

"It's not for you," she says when she leads him inside, and he looks at her strangely, raising her eyebrows, and she thinks maybe she knows that that was a lie. Maybe everything she does these days is for him, because he put her back together. She's lived alone for so long, and now she's not sure she'll ever be able to go back to that. But something in the curve of his smile when he looks at her tells her that maybe she'll never have to.


End file.
